I’m still here

I didn’t post for a whole week now and partially all my fault (ok almost entirely all my fault)

Emily (my flatmate-to-be) and me have been viewing apartments this whole week. And we noticed, that it isn’t that hard to find affordable apartments in inner-London. London is divided into 6 travel zones. We’re aiming for Zone 1 & Zone 2 , north of the river Thames. South of the river are the ghettos (where teen-gangs started a gun and knife-cult) so we don’t really want to live there. Zone 1 & 2 are the areas with all the landmarks and our universities.
We just have to accept the fact that we probably going to move in to a very ugly flat and not a Knightsbridge apartment with a view on Harrods.

On top of all this apartment-hunting, I’ve also encountered humongous money-problems. My employer forgot to pay me! I was supposed to get my pay last Wednesday but I never received it. And the 2 persons responsible for all the paying etc are on a holiday until next Tuesday.
So I didn’t get to pay my rent, which resulted in a fine of 12.5% of the total amount. Besides that, my ticket to Amsterdam in June got cancelled because I didn’t pay. ( I booked the ticket a while ago and I had to pay this Friday but since I don’t have money I couldn’t pay)

So its been a pretty hectic week and now I have a hang-over. Yesterday it was Queensday here in London. So I had a lot of Dutch herring, fries with onions, mayonnaise and sate-sauce. And fresh Dutch waffles! Oh and beer, lots of beer.
(pictures of me eating fries, drinking beer, eating cheese and pictures of Dutch in traditional clothes coming up soon hehe)
The real Queensday is tomorrow in Amsterdam. It will be the first time that I wont attend. Usually we hire a boat, buy a barrel or 2 of beer and “sail” through the canals of Amsterdam. And ending the day really drunk in the Vondelpark or at a rave-party somewhere at the docks.
It’s the best holiday ever! If you ever visit Amsterdam, come at the end of April. Imagine Amsterdam as 1 big, orange coloured, garage-sale with hundreds of thousands happy people. (I included some pictures at the end of this post)

A little preview (its this x1000)

In the meantime, Eatbees nominated me for a Thinking Award. Thank you!
Now I have to come up with other blogs/persons I want to give the award to.
I won’t do that now because I have no time. I have a viewing and a Darfur-rally to attend.
I’ll be posting a lot this coming week.

And oeh yeah, you know the changes I talked about in my previous post? Well, I kind of already started but I need my pay first:P

Alan Johnston in Gaza

As you might have seen, I added a “button” to my sidebar.
This one:

The British media and public are growing very concerned about the abduction of BBC-reporter Alan Johnston in Gaza.
He was one of the few foreign reporters who lived in Gaza.
You can read more about his abduction in one of the BBC’s timelines

Its been 6 weeks now

London Muslims and non-Muslims: not a big difference

Foreign Policy and Gallup World Poll published a survey about Britishness and
attitudes towards the state among London Muslims and the British public in general.

It turns out that both share a lot of views and agree on most of the current issues about multiculturalism, integration and identity.
You can read and see the data here

The surprising results of the poll shows us that the supposed clash of cultures between Muslims and non-Muslims isn’t really that big and that it revolves around minor issues (if you can call the veil-issue a minor issue of course).
The violent, little minority of extremists (the right-wing BNP and self-exploding Muslims) are an exception

Beyond the Veil-poll

Terrorist are proud drag-queens as well!

Drag power!!

One of the suspects of the 21 july London terror-plots tried to escape from the police wearing a burqa and a beautiful, light-coloured handbag. (presumably a fake Vuitton from Thailand)
Now the photos appeared!

The burqa certainly did help him! From Queen Ugliness to Queen Sheba

Before:

After:

This is how it should work!

This story is just remarkable.

Muslim children attending a strictly jewish school. Saying jewish prayers, eating kosher food, learning Hebrew, studying Judaism.
And the muslim parents taking all kind of measures to let their children attend that school.

How wonderful.

And another crusade.

In the States they have Barack Obama, in the UK there is Tory-leader David Cameron.
Yet another media-playboy, empty shell and politician without a real agenda.

And this “star” just announced a crusade against the oppression of Muslim women in the UK.
I mean, it is a noble cause. But do we have to use the word “crusade”? Does he want the muslim-community to work alongside with him or does he want to upset them?

But I forgive him, just because of the other things he said like “It’s no use behaving like the proverbial English tourist abroad, shouting ever more loudly at the hapless foreigner who doesn’t understand what is being said. We can’t bully people into feeling British – we have to inspire them”

But he’s still an empty shell.

UK Muslim police-officer and her hands

And we have another Muslim-controversy in the UK. Yeah!
This time it is a “non-asian muslim” female police officer who refused to shake hands with Sir Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

The reason? She is a female muslim and he is a man. Sir Ian Blair attended the graduation of the muslim woman’s class.
Sir Blair got an early notice that he shouldnt shake hands with the police officer. This made him mad but he didn’t want to create a scene on the spot.

The police officer in question explained that she doesn’t shake hands with man during social events (the graduation) but that she will touch men during her work.
She attended physical contact classes and nothing went wrong.
She will arrest men and beat them up if necessary (muslim women can be brutal police officers as well you know. Because of something called feminism)

This is ofcourse another bad publicity stunt for the UK muslim community ( I still have to figure out if I’m part of that community)
It will emphasize the “strangeness” of this community in the eyes of the British underbellies.

Ofcourse, as an ultra-liberal, I’m all pro-”do what you want in your private life”.
And because of the fact that the police officer in question said that she will touch and handle men during work-time, there shouldn’t be any problem.
But that would be in a perfect world.
At the moment it is a problem because of the tensions between the different communities in the UK and between the police force and the muslim community.
So it is a problem. If you want it or not.

She should have shaken hands with her boss. Just for the sake of publicity and because of the existing tensions.
It is weird to ask somebody to change her values she enforces in her private life because of public tensions.
But anyhow, this is how it works now. We came to a point whereby a community has to adapt in strange ways to satisfy another community.

So shake hands with non-muslim guys and don’t shake hands with muslim guys, if you want to ofcourse.

Racism on Celebrity Big Brother?

The UK is spellbound by the alleged racism on Celebrity Big Brother (CBB)
CBB is a show were minor “celebs” can regain their old 5 minutes of fame.
It is raunchy, stupid and uninteresting. Usually.

Because now, all of the UK wonders if 3 of the contestants are racist or not.
The 3 are Jade Goody (fat cow that participated in BB3), Danielle Loyd (who?) and Jo O’meara (who again?)
The person being “racially attacked” is Bollywood-star Shilpa Shetty.

The 3 minor “celebs” constantly make fun of Shilpa’s Indian background, her accent and the Indian culture.
Some of the comments:
O’Meara: “Indians are thin because they are always ill, due to undercooked food.”
Danielle Lloyd: “don’t let her touch your food. You never know where her hands have been, because all Indians eat with their hands”
Lloyd: “She’s a dog”

And she has been called Paki, a presumably offensive word in the UK.
The mother of Jade (who has been voted out of the house) constantly referred to Shilpa as “the Indian”
Shilpa was also accused of wanting to be “light-skinned” when she was just applying some face-cream.

Jade Goody is famous because of her BB3-appearance and her stupidity. She thinks that East-Anglia is an actual country. Tactical is being pronounced as tictactical.
She wonders if they speak English in the USA.
And more famous quotes:

“Do they speak Portuganese in Portugal? I thought Portugal was in Spain.”

“Rio de Janeiro, ain’t that a person?”

“What’s asparagus? Do you grow it?”

The other 2 aren’t really bright as well.
So is it really racism or just stupidity combined with ignorance?
I think its just ignorance. You cant take Jade Goody seriously. I wonder if she even knows what the word racism means. (a city in Finland?)

In the meantime, the whole situation is turned into a diplomatic row.
Blair’s heir, Gordon Brown, is on a visit in India. Indian politicians keep on asking him questions about the situation.
Meanwhile, the biggest sponsor of CBB, Carphone Warehouse, has officially suspended its sponsorship.
Jade Goody’s perfume-line has been withdrawn from the shops.
And Channel4 (which broadcasts the show) has seen a tremendous increase in its audience figures.

Tomorrow is the big finale. Both Shilpa and Jade are nominated to be evicted. And according to the bookies, it is Jade who is gonna leave CBB

To add some visuals:


Jade vs. Shilpa

Video: Islamic extremism inside the UK

Yesterday Channel 4 aired an interesting documentary about Islamic extremism/wahhabism in the UK.
It was very interesting and quite shocking. It was nothing new actually. We all know that wahhabism is everywhere.
But it is still interesting to see how it works and how they camouflage radical mosques as tolerant and open.
See the 6 videos after the jump